James Neil Sneddon is an Australian linguist who specializes in Indonesian and languages of Sulawesi.
He studied Linguistics and Indonesian at the University of Sydney. In 1974, he obtained a doctorate from the Australian National University, where he completed his dissertation Tondano Phonology and Grammar. He was an associate professor at Griffith University in Queensland.[1]
Sneddon has written numerous works on the Indonesian language, including grammar textbooks. He is the author of the book Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian, which describes the Jakarta dialect.[1] In the book The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society, he presents the history of the Indonesian language and its function in modern Indonesia.[2]
Sneddon's proto-language reconstructions include Proto-Minahasan and Proto-Sangiric.[3][4]